School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, 18 Frederick St, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Curr Pharm Teach Learn. 2020 Nov;12(11):1348-1353. doi: 10.1016/j.cptl.2020.05.011. Epub 2020 Jun 12.
Therapeutic decision-making is a critical part of the skill set required by practicing pharmacists. A potentially straightforward way to teach and evaluate decision-making skills is use of real-time simulations. This study aimed to evaluate pharmacy students' perceptions of using a real-time simulation game to treat their own virtual patient.
Second professional year (Y2) and fourth professional year (Y4) pharmacy students were provided an opportunity to use a virtual patient simulation in their courses. Student perceptions of the game and use of the game for decision-making were evaluated by a questionnaire. The qualitative findings were analysed using an inductive thematic analysis.
The questionnaire was completed by 120 Y2 and 115 Y4 students. Four themes arose from the analysis that reflected the students' perceptions of autonomy in their learning and practice, the difficulty in committing to a decision, and having fun while learning.
This work provides an initial exploration of the perceptions of pharmacy students about playing a real-time, autonomous, simulation-based game for treating a patient. Future research should focus on more detailed evaluation of this game for learning therapeutic decision-making.
治疗决策是执业药师所需技能的重要组成部分。使用实时模拟来教授和评估决策技能是一种简单直接的方法。本研究旨在评估药学专业学生对使用实时模拟游戏来治疗自己虚拟患者的看法。
为二年级（Y2）和四年级（Y4）药学专业学生提供了在课程中使用虚拟患者模拟的机会。通过问卷调查评估学生对游戏的看法以及游戏在决策中的使用情况。定性结果采用归纳主题分析进行分析。
共有 120 名 Y2 学生和 115 名 Y4 学生完成了问卷。分析得出了四个主题，反映了学生在学习和实践中的自主性、做出决策的困难以及学习时的乐趣等方面的看法。
本工作初步探讨了药学专业学生对玩实时、自主、基于模拟的游戏治疗患者的看法。未来的研究应重点详细评估该游戏在治疗决策学习中的应用。
